Blue spruce dead needles falling on lower branches

Blue spruce dead needles falling on lower branches

Mon Aug 17, 2015 7:04 pm

Hi everyone

I have a very tall blue spruce in my front yard. Pretty healthy from what I can tell (I'm not very educated about these things).

One problem is the dead needles. Because the tree is so thick and tall - the dead needles from the higher branches don't fall all the way to the ground, many of them fall onto and stay on the lower branches. You can kind of see here:

It doesn't look like a lot but each pile like that weighs a kilo or two. Not enough to break the branches but enough to pull them down a lot.

Actually it's not the weight I'm worried about, it's the light. I imagine the live needles under the dead ones aren't too happy.

But I don't know what to do about it. It's a large tree (2-3 stories high) and shaking the branches from the side just gets the pile of dead leaves on the branch below it. Is there a trick to doing this more efficiently? Perhaps make a pole with a hook at the end, get under the tree, and shake it from the inside?

Re: Blue spruce dead needles falling on lower branches

Tue Aug 18, 2015 12:54 am

Hello again,I cleaned my arborvitaes over the weekend. There were lots of dead needles in them. I have over a dozen medium size arborvitaes, and 2 that are full grown and I couldn't reach the top branches of the 2 full grown trees. I used the 3 prong tool and I also used a metal rake. I also used my hands and arms. However, I do not recommend using hands and arms because I had an allergic reaction. My hands and arms are still red today with little scratches. I used the needles as mulch for another part of my yard that needed it. I like the shop vac idea. Do you think that a shop vac is better than a leaf blower-vac? I don't have either but am thinking about buying one or the other.

Re: Blue spruce dead needles falling on lower branches

Shop vac worked pretty well! Broke almost none of the live branches, though they are much more frail than I expected. And collected almost a full paper bag of needles. Here's before:

And after:

The difference is less obvious in the photos than it is in fact. I'm quite happy with it.

I also tried to blow the needles but that did almost nothing, they are stuck in there. The trick with the vacuuming is to hold the pipe underneath or at the side as much as possible and shake the branch with the same pipe. That way as the needles are dislodged and/or fall - they get sucked into the shop vac.

Took me less than two hours! I bet that was 40 years' worth of old needles Will see what it looks like next summer.

Re: Blue spruce dead needles falling on lower branches

Wed Aug 19, 2015 5:04 pm

Your clean tree is gorgeous! My arborvitaes were the same way, with over 20 years of dead needle accumulation inside the tree. I filled 3 of those big paper lawn leaf bags with dead needles from just my 2 largest trees. The needles are working nicely as groundcover in another area of my yard. I was going to buy beauty bark for that area but I am using the needles instead. The dead needles look really nice, like a forest floor.

I still have some work to do because the tools did not dislodge all of the dead needles. I plan to try a shop vac like you did. Thank you for the good advice on that.

Re: Blue spruce dead needles falling on lower branches

Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:25 am

Andrew,Do you think a pressure washer would work? I tried using the hose with a spray nozzle and it did work some but there wasn't enough pressure. I might try it this weekend, very carefully of course.

Re: Blue spruce dead needles falling on lower branches

Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:41 am

I suspect not, though your tree is probably very different from mine. With the blue spruce I've tried shaking with my hands and various tools and nothing seemed to make much difference. Shaking vigorously would let some needles down, but nowhere near all of them.

That's why I posted here to ask for advice, I'm glad I thought of the shop vac. Even with that it's not as easy as vacuuming dust from a carpet, it took me some dexterity to get the needles to go in.

What were you doing before? Is that not working any more? Your photo from the other post looks pretty good?

Re: Blue spruce dead needles falling on lower branches

Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:56 am

I got most of the dead needles out using the 3 prong tool and the metal rake. I don't have a shop vac yet. Using the tools worked well but I still see some dead needles in there. They are caught in the crevises of the branches. The cleaning I did is probably good enough. I filled 3 large yard bags so it made a big difference. I just want to get them all if I can. I can't reach the high branches at all. I think the wind will knock the top ones down in November. Sometimes I can be too much of a perfectionist. My trees look nice. They seem like they are healthier and happier now.